Hardscaping and Outdoor Living Services
Rolling Hills Landscapes has built pavers, walls, and outdoor living spaces across Pittsburgh's South Hills and North Hills since 2000. Everything below is something we build ourselves. It's organized the way you'd actually plan a project, not as a flat list.
Family owned and building hardscapes in the Pittsburgh area since 2000.
1 of 5 installers nationwide holding the CMHA Advanced Installer Designation, ours is on every job.
Pavers Services
Every paver surface below gets the same base and drainage work underneath it. What changes is the material on top, not the standard.
Pavers
We're a Unilock Authorized Contractor. That means our crews are trained and certified to their installation standard, not just familiar with the product. Every paver job starts the same way: dig out to the right depth, compact the base in layers, screed the sand, then lay and compact the pavers so the joints lock everything together. That base work is what decides whether a patio lasts twenty years or needs to be redone in five. It's where we spend most of our time.
See our paver installation process »
Paver Patios
We walk the property with you before anything gets designed. Where the sun sits in the evening. How the ground drains after it rains. Whether runoff from the yard needs to be handled before we even talk about paver color. That's what keeps a patio from turning into a puddle a year in. Once we've got that figured out, we grade the site, set the base, and build in a slope so water actually goes somewhere.
Start planning your patio »
Driveway Pavers
A driveway takes a different kind of beating than a patio. Vehicle weight, road salt, freeze and thaw every winter. So we dig deeper and compact a heavier base underneath it, and we set edge restraints that won't work loose after a few winters. If a section ever does get damaged, we replace that section. Not the whole driveway.
See our driveway paver process »
Walkway Pavers
Walkway layout happens after we've already walked the property, so the path follows how people actually move, not a straight line on a drawing. On a sloped yard, that also means building in enough pitch to shed water without the path feeling like a ramp.
See walkway paver options »
Natural Stone Pavers
Travertine, bluestone, flagstone, granite. We source all of it from suppliers we've worked with for years, because natural stone varies piece to piece, and a patio pieced together from three different lots looks like it. It also installs slower than concrete or brick. Every piece gets checked and set by hand instead of laid to a repeating pattern, and we build that time into the schedule instead of rushing it.
See natural stone options »
Pool Deck Pavers
A pool deck has one job poured concrete is bad at: staying cool and staying grippy when it's wet. We pick finishes for slip resistance first, not color, and we build in coping details and a drainage slope a regular patio doesn't need.
See pool deck paver options »Outdoor Living Services
Every feature below gets planned together, not sold as separate add ons. That's the difference between a backyard that feels like one space and one that looks like it was built in three different phases.
Outdoor Living
Most backyards only get used a few months a year, usually by accident, not design. We plan the opposite way. Kitchen, fireplace or fire feature, seating, all laid out together so the sightlines and traffic flow actually work as one space. On a hillside lot, that planning stage is also where we figure out grading and any retaining structure the yard needs, before the fun stuff goes in on top.
Start your outdoor living project »
Outdoor Kitchens
We pour the foundation and run the gas, water, and electrical lines first, and get all of it inspected, before any counter or veneer goes on. Nothing gets torn back into later. Counter height, grill placement, the path between cooking and seating, we work all of that out with you on site, based on how you actually cook and entertain.
Plan your outdoor kitchen »
Outdoor Fireplaces
The footing gets poured and the block core built before the patio around it is finished. A fireplace is structural, not something you set on top of a finished patio afterward. We build the firebox and flue for wood or gas, whichever you want, and we build them to hold up to real wind and weather, not just look good on a calm day.
See fireplace materials and styles »
Outdoor Firepits
No footing, no flue, so a firepit goes in faster and costs less than a fireplace. That's really the whole tradeoff. We install prefab units that are ready in a day, and custom masonry pits built to match whatever stone or paver work is already on the property, so it doesn't look bolted on later.
See firepit options »
Outdoor Barbecues
Most of this job is the rough in. Gas line placement, clearance from anything that burns, a counter sized to fit the actual grill going in it, not a generic one. Grill dimensions vary more than people expect. We handle that rough in and framing first, so the finished piece fits your grill instead of your grill getting squeezed into it.
See built in grill options »
Barbecue Islands
We build the island around the grill, side burner, and storage you actually want, and we lock that layout in with you before construction starts. No two we've built look quite the same, because we size them to the patio instead of building to a standard footprint.
Design your BBQ island »Walls & Retaining Structures
Both of these start with the same site visit: soil, slope, drainage, what's sitting on top of the wall. What we build from there depends on what that visit turns up.
Retaining Walls
Every retaining wall starts with a soil and drainage check, not a plan pulled off a shelf. From there we set the base, place backfill and drainage stone in layers, and build to whatever wall type the site actually calls for. Any wall over four feet needs engineering and a permit under Pennsylvania law. We handle that part too, so it's not left for you to sort out.
See our retaining wall process »
Engineered Walls
Sometimes that visit turns up height, load, or soil conditions that call for more than a standard wall. When it does, we bring in a civil engineer for calculations and stamped drawings before we build. Our crew installs the geogrid at the engineer's exact intervals, a more exacting build than a standard gravity wall. We manage that relationship and the permits, so it's one project, not two.
See our engineered wall process »Hardscape Structure & Masonry
This is how we actually run a project, plus the smaller details that finish one off.
Steps
We build to a consistent rise and run across the whole flight. Sounds small until you've climbed a set of steps where it isn't. Depending on the site, we set large precast steps with equipment, build with block and matching caps, or cut and set natural stone, matched to whatever the wall or grade change next to it is built from.
See step materials and styles »
Hardscaping
Every project follows the same order, big or small. Site walk first. Then grading and drainage. Then the structural work: walls before patios, patio bases before an outdoor kitchen sits on one. Surface materials and finish work come last. We don't skip ahead, because skipping ahead is where walls shift, patios pond water, and pavers heave a year or two later. Not exciting to read about. It's the reason the rest of this page holds up.
See our full project process »
Hardscaping Features
Pillars, seat walls, stone mailboxes: these get built during the same phase as whatever they're attached to, using matching material so they read as part of the structure instead of something tacked on later. A seat wall gets the same block and cap as the retaining wall next to it, so the two look like one piece, not two projects.
See pillars, seat walls, and mailboxes »
Outdoor Masonry
Mortared masonry, brick, block, or stone built as one permanent piece, is a different skill than paver work. It's what our stonemasons handle: fireplaces, mailbox columns, veneer. We mix and cure that mortar with winter in mind, because masonry that isn't built for freeze thaw is where you start seeing cracked joints and spalling brick within a few years.
See our masonry and stonework »Not sure which of these your project needs?
Call or text and tell us what you're picturing. We'll walk the property and tell you straight what it actually takes.